


The Super of Montmorency Hall

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Post-Chosen, post-nfa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Anelith.  Yet more amnesiac!Xander; the basement of doom, as it were . . . oh, and Angel's there, too.  Characters and dialogue very much driven by NIN's "Every Day Is Exactly The Same," and Duran Duran's "Ordinary World."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Super of Montmorency Hall

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Set Post-NFA by eleven years. Crack meets angst. Crangst.

  
It only takes driving a screwdriver through his palm once to teach a man a very valuable lesson: always be careful to focus on the task at hand, be it a clogged sink, a busted tv, or a cranky industrial stove.  
  
  
Except for the nearly inaudible breathing from a few paces behind him, Montmorency Hall is wonderfully silent. Then again, even at its fullest, it's almost always sepulchral in its silence.  That's what Xander likes about it.  
  
  
"Um . . . hey, Xander.”  
  
  
He grunts by way of acknowledgment, but doesn't look away from the paint can until he's got the cover all the way off. He's just glad at least one of the Before People can hold his peace. For a few moments, anyway.  
  
  
 _Acres and acres of _Desert Arroyo_ , just waiting for a wall,_ he muses, turning around and smiling automatically, if not sincerely. Bonhomie, on demand. Xander's always well aware of what's expected of him, even if he doesn't always deliver.  "What can I do ya for, Angel?"  
  
  
Angel shifts uncomfortably; a tall, tan, broad-shouldered man who habitually shoves his hands in his pockets. He's so  _awkward_ , so damned  _squirrely_  that even after two years of sporadic visits to Montmorency, he still throws Xander for a loop. Makes his always-playing-catch-up brain scramble extra hard to  _be Xandery_ , which of course makes him extra tired and achy.  He can already feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on.  They've lessened some over time, but still crop up when he's stressed.  When he's around people from Before.  
  
  
The shifting stops, and Angel's eyes drift from a steady examination of the air over Xander's right shoulder, to his face, before going to the bank of north-facing windows.   "Drusilla said you were down here, and I, um. . . ."  
  
  
When the sentence doesn't pick up after  _um_ , Xander sighs silently. Pinches the bridge of his nose and counts to twenty.  Then he turns the wattage up on that friendly smile. It's old hat by now, pretending to be someone everyone except him remembers vividly. "Lemme guess--you're here to let me Huck Finn you into painting the basement."  
  
  
"Uh, no . . . wait.  _What_?" Angel looks lost, and that's kinda funny.   _Angel_  is kinda funny, though Xander gets the feeling that this tendency to be amusing is neither intentional, nor would it go over well to point it out.  And Xander's all about the accommodating of the Before People, if only so they'll leave him alone faster.  
  
  
"'Hucklebery Finn'.  It's a novel I'm told I had to read for Freshman English.  There were easily-conned children and fence-painting.  And a river, I think," he adds--helpfully, though the knowledge has never helped  _him_  any, he's certain.  
  
  
It's apparently not helping Angel, either.  "Sorry, never mind.  So what was it you wanted?"  
  
  
"I just want . . . wanted to make myself useful while I'm here." Angel's shoulders sag and he exhales heavily.  The hands go in his pockets again, and his eyes skitter off toward the windows that line either side of the empty basement. Yearningly.  
  
  
 _Oh, you're not nearly bendy enough to wriggle out that way, chum,_  Xander thinks with the sort of absent amusement that's borne of benevolent indifference.  Then the import of the previous statement trickles through. "I'm sorry, you wanna  _what_ , now?"  
  
  
" _Help_.  You," Angel spits out, as if he's been kidney punched, rocking forward, then backward: heel of foot, ball of foot, second verse, same as the first. Lather, rinse, repeat. "I'd really, uh, like to . . . help you."  
  
  
And  _that_  sure doesn't hang in the air all weird and creepy.  Or maybe it does, since Angel immediately starts backpedaling.  "I mean.  I was just visiting--uh, Drusilla.  Visiting Drusilla.  As I sometimes do. And she mentioned that you were painting.  The basement.  So I thought I would help you.  Paint.  The basement."  He gestures at the many, many cans of paint and the many, many yards of wall with false enthusiasm.  
  
  
 _We falsely enthusiastic can indeed smell our own_ , Xander acknowledges to himself, in his first moment of solidarity with one of the Before People.  
  
  
And this awkwardness is just another thing that makes it so difficult to believe that  _this guy_  was once a vampire.  A brooding, tormented, darkly sexy, charismatic anti-hero (Andrew's words), who could fade into and out of one's awareness at will.  Granted, Xander's familiarity with vampires (if one excludes his Before-experiences) is extremely limited, but from the passing acquaintance he's had with Spike, and his continuing and extended acquaintance with Drusilla, he'd be inclined to think Angel far too . . .  _doofy_  to be an effective vampire.  He's just not scary or mean enough.  
  
  
But then, Xander's no judge of people, these days.  Doesn't see the point in trying to be.  
  
  
"So.  You're here to help me," he says without inflection, which is an inflection in and of itself. The inflection of wanting to strangle Drusilla . . . only, a) strangulation?  Ineffective on the undead, and b) she's one of a very few Before People whose presence doesn't send Xander to bed with agonizing migraines.  
  
  
Most importantly, she's also c) the only person at Montmorency Hall Xander ever  _wants_  to talk to, full-stop.  "'Kaaay. Have you ever painted a wall before?"  
  
  
"Nah. But I can play it by ear." Some emotion flashes across Angel's features--not an angel's face, not to Xander, but strong-featured and interesting.  At this moment however, it's pinched and unhappy, as if Angel'd rather be anywhere but here.  
  
  
On this they agree: Xander wishes Angel were anywhere but here, as well.  That, like most of the Before People--even, and at long last, Willow Rosenberg--he'd simply confine any interaction to holidays and birthdays.  
  
  
But if wishes were fishes . . . then all the world would fuck right off and leave Xander in peace and silence forever. . . .  
  
  
Angel is staring right at him now, all pity and disappointment.  Just like the others.  They all want something from him he can't give no matter how hard he tries--want him to  _be_  the guy who used to live in this body, and have shenanigans.  The guy who made with the funny, non-stop.  
  
  
For a few seconds,  _Xander wants_ , with frightening intensity, to beat that look off Angel's face.  Off  _all_  their faces.  He has never, in his very brief, very patchy life experienced such a strong antagonism toward people who, for all their flaws, have never meant him anything but well. . . .  
  
  
Pain begins to build at the back of his head, and behind his eyes--even the one he no longer has.  Rises and gathers like a wave with darkness riding its crest, streaks and scorches the bones of his face and rattles his teeth.  Every inch of his skull feels tight and brittle with an impending migraine.  
  
  
He turns away.  Breathes.  Tells himself no one's who they used to be.  But that's hardly consolation to the pressure behind his nonexistent left eye.   _It_  clearly thinks Xander  _is_  still the same guy who lost it to a super-strong monster-man.  
  
  
"Okay," he says around the ache, even though it drowns out anything Angel might be saying; even though nothing is okay and it never will be.   He suspects he's always been good at smoothing over jagged truths with even lies.  "Okey-dokey, Smokey. Grab one of those rollers, and . . . you can take this end of the north wall.  I'll take the other end . . . we'll meet near the middle."  
  
  


*

  
  
Rupert Giles's Home For Damaged/ Batshit-Insane Persons of Problematic Destiny isn't, all-in-all, a bad place to spend the rest of one's bland existence.  
  
  
Montmorency Hall is a large facility, on an even larger property, somewhere in Scotland—Xander's never really cared where, and in the two years since he was brought here, he'd never tried to go anywhere else—quietly owned and maintained by the Watchers' Council of which, before he literally lost his figurative marbles, Xander was an integral part.  
  
  
He's not the only ex-Watcher stashed in Monty Hall, oh, no. In fact, most of the facility's twenty-two full-time residents are former Watchers who've gone frail and/ or barking mad. There're also a handful of disabled Slayers who chose to live out their remaining years away from the world they'd helped to save (but not for themselves, to paraphrase one of the few books Xander's told he read for pleasure) instead of becoming Watchers or Council-persons.  
  
  
Among that handful, are two Slayers who've gone crazy enough to warrant twenty-four hour monitoring, though Dana has her good days. Days where she's more or less normal . . . for a Slayer. The other Slayer, a thirteen year old girl called Val--whose name and history before she was chosen Chosen no one knows--has to frequently be restrained by drugs and magic.  
  
  
The closest either Slayer has to a friend is the facility's only non-human resident, Drusilla. Interestingly enough, she also serves Xander in the same capacity, though what that says about Xander, he doesn't care to ponder. It's enough that he prefers Drusilla's occasionally eerie silences to Willow Rosenberg's inane strolls down No-Memory Lane. Drusilla's stream-of-thought rambling to Buffy Summers's stoic, supportive monosyllables.  
  
  
He prefers Drusilla's endless curiosity about  _him_  to Rupert Giles's bottomless  _understanding_ \--or attempts at--in the hopes of teasing out the lost memories of someone who appears to be gone forever.  
  
  


*

  
  
Angel's clearly been hiding his bright light under a bushel.  
  
  
He can rattle off whole, vaguely lilting monologues easily worthy of Frank McCourt. Even mid-exertion. Neither ramble nor roller falter, and there doesn't seem to be even a speckle of paint on his charcoal-and-black business casual attire. Plus, he's covered at least half again as much wall as Xander has. He shows no signs of flagging.  
  
  
If Xander cared more, he'd be resentful. As it is, he simply has no psychological reserves to support extraneous emotion.  
  
  
But briefly, he wishes he  _could_  remember his past  _if only_  to think wistfully on all the wonderful, blessed silences in which they must've worked. He's been told enough about Angel-that-was to read between the lines. The man wasn't a chatty-Cathy, and that's something Xander has had occasion to really wish was still the case. Not that he imagines he once enjoyed the  _quality_  of those silences.  According to Dawn Summers, vampire!Angel's silences were always angsty, and _fraught_  with . . . something.  Mostly with pretentious self-loathing that was about as tolerable as a full-body rash.  
  
  
These days, however Xander can appreciate a quiet stretch as well as the next guy—maybe more. And though he and human!Angel aren't exactly hang-out buddies, he wishes the man would be a little like his old self, and  _shut the fuck up_. An irony of ironies, but the sheer volume of spot-babbling produced by one nervously upbeat ex-vampire is mind-boggling enough to drive a saint to profanity.  
  
  
Said spot-babbling that doesn't seem to require more participation than the half an ear and complete silence with which Xander responds.   
  
  
“. . . if Andrew got a Prince Albert, she'd get, um, well, an approximate part of her own anatomy pierced. And you've met Andrew, right? He's thrice-wrapped around her finger. Though I've got no right to cast stones. The blarney is strong in that girl, heh . . . that was a Star Wars reference—you've seen Star Wars, right? Anyway. Dawn could talk an Eskimo into buying an air conditioner in February. And she  _was_  right about the healing time. Mine healed alright, though the itching nearly drove me crazy that first week—Jesus, and poor Andrew got the  _worst_  infection in his--”  
  
  
Aaaaand . . . time to tune back out. It's actually not hard. Really, Angel's babbling is almost like white noise, all observations and rhetorical questions. If nothing else, it's a relief not to have to talk, to be funny, to be  _on_. To not have to pretend he understands why  _every little thing_  about every little thing is so damn cool and amusing. To remember which Bollywood starlets he used to drool over, or what he once preferred: Picard or Kirk, Twinkies or Ring-Dings, blondes or brunettes, Tom Baker or David Tennant.  
  
  


*

  
  
One of his earliest, fragmented, nightmarish memories are of waking up in a strange bed, in a strange room, in a strange  _body_ \--a complete stranger to himself, not that there was much self to be stranger to.  
  
  
Speech he remembered well enough to understand and emulate. To say  _yes, thank you_ ,  _no, thank you_ , and  _fine, thanks_  whenever the doctors or the Rosenberg woman wouldn't be fobbed off with dopey smiles and seemingly contented silences.  
  
  
 _There's nothing left to cure_ , he'd tried and wanted to say, but some rusty connection between fevered brain and underused vox-box wasn't cooperating for  _that_. Usually around then the bone-deep pain in his skull would begin, bringing with it sadness and loss and the sour after-taste of memories he didn't have and didn't want. . . .  
  
  
He'd return to himself hoarse, hungry, and frightened, wanting . . . he didn't know what. But what he got was the Before People, the ones who littered his discarded memories like dead leaves, caterpillar holes showing in their stoic smiles and tragic eyes.  
  
  
Back then, while their hope was still fresh, wasn't a pile of burnt-out ashes, they were  _always_ waiting for him when he woke from a migraine, but now Xander is mostly left alone.  
  
  
The Before People have kept themselves mostly scarce over the past year, only partly because of Rupert Giles's hesitant suggestion and Xander's relieved agreement with said suggestion that he be allowed the space and unbreathing-room he so needs.  
  
  
He's allowed to leave the grounds unescorted, though not without a Blackberry that he suspects has a tracking device in it (or he doesn't know Rupert Giles. And technically he  _doesn't_  know Rupert Giles, but objectively speaking, Mr. Giles seems like a man that'd put a tracer in an amnesiac's phone without a qualm).  
  
  
His few, infrequent, though predictable visitors aren't horribly intrusive (even the Rosenberg woman has mellowed in this regard). They mostly want to see that he's still okay; and he is, relatively speaking. To see if he's remembering anything; and he hasn't, nor does he care to. To see if he's ready to resume the life that was so disastrously interrupted--  
  
  
\--and he most certainly does  _not_.  
  
  
To see if it's still alright that they've continued living their lives—and living them well—in his absence.  
  
  
 _Mourn your friend, but don't look back,_  he'd tell them, if he thought they'd actually listen. But the Before People are nothing, if not tenacious.  And anyway, hope makes excellent earplugs.  
  
  


*

  
  
The wall.  
  
  
Something about the wall makes Xander's head hurt.  Makes him hear music he doesn't want to identify--has to fight not to hear snippets of. . . .  
  
  
 _seen the writing on the wall_  
  
  
. . .aside from fighting the impeding doom building where his useless sinuses rest, a building up of pressure like the moments before a sneeze, only Xander can't and doesn't, so the pressure builds, and builds, and then keeps building till he's forced to lay down or fall down. . . .  
  
  
 _think I need anything at all_  
  
  
. . . he desperately tunes back into reality, and Angel's less than ten feet away, what seems like miles and miles of freshly, evenly painted wall stretching beyond him. Xander sighs and leans his roller on the last dry section of wall, and leans next to it. Watches the effortless way Angel glides the roller, the way his shoulder and back muscles move under his fancy-ish button-down shirt. Notices that Angel always seems to know how to  _wear_  a pair of pants--  
  
  
 _Throbba-dobba_ , goes the head, starting to spread outward like a cancer.  
  
  
"--only an auxiliary training area for the SiRs, but couldn't you have picked a better color?”  
  
  
“Hmm?” Xander raises his eye, and catches Angel catching him ogling. They both blink, but neither look away, and for the first time since it started, the roller slows. Stops.  
  
  
Xander shakes his head and looks down when Angel's eyes search his own in a way he's very much  _not_  comfortable with. His ears feel like they're on fire, which is a fine feat for a man with no circulation.  
  
  
“Um . . . this color. It's kinda . . . I mean, I'm not Michelangelo, but these walls look like overcooked eggs covered in Cheez Whiz."  
  
  
Xander snorts, and drags his eyes to the piles of mats and exercise equipment in the center of the basement. The table with the painting supplies and turpentine. Anything to avoid that gaze and stave off yet another Before-People-inspired migraine. As if in complete agreement, his head throbs once, warningly, but the ache abates a bit. “This color was chosen by our Benevolent Overlords, as the least likely to piss anyone off, or spark a psychotic break-slash-killing spree . . . plus Drusilla said it has a good energy.”  
  
  
“Oh. Well, I suppose she'd know better than any of us when it comes to color-energy.” Angel clears his throat.  Drifts close enough to lean his roller next to Xander's then leans himself against the wall with a wistful sort of sigh.  “So, did you volunteer to do this, or were you drafted?”  
  
  
“A little of both, I guess.” Xander closes his eye and listens to his head throb.  "Gotta earn my keep somehow."  
  
  
"No, you don't. No one expects you to be the Montmorency superintendent."  There's sternness but no real reproof in Angel's voice.  "Just because you forgot how to love us, doesn't mean we love you any less.  In fact . . . we love you  _more_. Or we would, if you'd let us."  
  
  
Xander opens his eye and Angel's  _right there_  in front of him, close enough for Xander to see how dark those eyes really are. To really  _see_  every laugh – and worry-line, every grey hair.  And that's all he's got time to see before Angel's pinning him to the wall lightly but firmly, pressing their cheeks together.  His smooth, Coppertone-ad skin gets audibly rasped by what Dawn Summers calls Xander's “crazy-homeless-guy stubble,” but Angel seems oblivious.  To the rasping and to Xander's rigid shock.  
  
  
“I thought I was keeping you innocent, that I was protecting you by denying you my blood,” he's whispering in a quiet rush as his hands each find tasks: sliding under Xander's faded  **radio clyde**  t-shirt--the one Connor gave him last Christmas--to rest on the small of his back and the curve of his ass. “There's no guarantee Sire's blood'd work worth a damn to finish you now that I'm human, but I have to try. For both our sakes, maybe, but I'm too selfish to let you go on like this, anyway.  Too damn--"  
  
  
"--much.  You talk too-damn-much,"  Xander grits out, grabbing Angel's shoulders, and spinning them around.  One hard slam and one explosive gasp from Angel later, and their positions are reversed.  
  
  
“You Before People,” he growls, his nose brushing the tip of Angel's. This close, Angel smells like he does from a distance: like cool water and warm skin; sunshine and faded photographs. Also like Mrs.  Hillcrest's flapjacks and WiR Hansen's infamously strong Bloody Marys; like fear and lust and longing.  It's a strangely heady combination of smells, compelling and overwhelming.  Which is exactly why Xander never breathes anymore.  If he can help it, which he usually can.  
  
  
But now that he  _can't_  help it, for the first time in well over a year, he can't seem to stop.  Stop sniffing Angel--stop breathing  _in_  his scent.  Breathing it in and in till it feels like his dead lungs will explode.  
  
  
“Everything you're feeling right now is natural and right, I promise you, Xander,” Angel says in a voice that's gentle yet iron-clad. His eyes are drowning pools that he's caught in till Angel's fingers brush his cheek, then his neck, urging it gently downward. “It's okay. Go on.”  
  
  
"What're you—I can't . . . fuck, why do you smell so--”  _delicious_. Xander stops himself from saying it aloud, just leaning in to press his nose to the little patch of promised land pulsing so vulnerably at Angel's throat. Soothing fingers comb through his hair and stroke the back of his neck. “Angel, what're you doing to me.”  
  
  
“Something I should've done a long time ago.  _Drink_.”  
  
  
It's not supposed to be like this. He's not supposed to  _want_  this. No less than Rupert Giles and Willow Rosenberg had  _promised_  him that the soul would keep him from wanting to do  _this_. Hell, the soul's the only reason that he, unlike Drusilla, has the freedom to come and go as he pleases. Not that he pleases to go anywhere.  
  
  
But it's the principle of the thing, freedom. At least that's what Xander thinks. What else would he want with a soul that does nothing but crouch and cower inside him while giving him blinding migraines (like the one that's hovering near nuclear again) at the least littlest return of a memory? That's keeping him from being whatever it is he's perpetually trapped on the cusp of becoming, but can't quite become? That keeps him from being  _complete_?  
  
  
In return, the soul's supposed to keep him from wanting this, keep him content with synthesized plasma (and the underwhelming ability to repair anything but himself) in place of the hunt and the kill. So far, it's done a pretty bang-up job, despite its squeamishness and refusal to do anything but rain guilt and pain on Xander's already lame parade.  
  
  
Speaking of pain, his lack of heartbeat pounds relentlessly in his ears, and his skull feels like it's about to crack and crumble. His face aches and burns, tightens and releases like a broken hand trying to make a fist. He can feel another migraine on the near horizon and it's shaping up to be the biggest, the worst he's ever had.  
  
  
“I know what you need,” Angel murmurs again, still stroking and pulling Xander against him. He's hard, and breathing that way, his lips moving on the cup of Xander's ear. “Obey your Sire, boy, and  _drink_.”  
  
  
“Please, don't. Don't--” Xander moans, but it's too late. The pain in his head and face reaches a fever-pitch . . . then the headache is gone in seconds, like it never was and for the first time ever, Xander Harris has his gameface  _on_.  
  
  
Switching his grip to Angel's hips, Xander squeezes until Angel gasps, and so help him, that makes everything--the blood, the gameface, the silence of the soul, the delicious friction of Angel's erection rubbing against the first erection Xander's ever been even close to achieving--feel even better.  
  
  
Oh, and there's a hot red gush of absolute perfection that even now is wetting his fangs and spilling down his throat in a trickle—then in mouthfuls.  
  
  
Xander  _so_  blames it on grave-shock that he gave  _this_  away for the useless piece of ectoplasm taking up his entire existence. Especially when he's not the only one enjoying this interlude. Angel's big, warm hands move from his back, to his ass and hold him  _closer.  
  
  
Any closer, and he'd be behind me. Ba-doom-boom! Thank you, I'll be here all weekend! Try the veal, and remember to tip your servers!_  a chirpy, smart-alecky, familiar voice whispers in the back of his brain, almost like there's someone standing right next to him. He thinks it might be his soul, but he can't be sure, since it's never spoken to him directly, never had any meaningful contact with him that wasn't pain- or guilt-related.  
  
  
So Xander ignores it and drinks deeper, till Angel's gasps stop, only to be exchanged for a loud, drawn out groan.  
  
  
“Xand' . . . please tell me . . . this is joggin' memories,” Angel pants, laughing a little. Xander can't even tell if he's come yet, lost as he is in the absolute rapture and revelation that is feeding on live human blood. And he doesn't really care whether either of them have come or not--never mind that if he doesn't stop drinking, Angel's going to die in his arms.     
  
  
A human dies every second of every day, and most of them go unremarked. Whatever he once was, now, Angel's just another dying human being.  
  
  
“ . . . runnin' 'bout a quart low. . . .”  
  
  
It's about this time the migraine comes screaming back, worse than it's ever been, and Xander's certain he's about to puke up all the blood he just drank, despite not having a gag-reflex. He's suddenly in  _pain_ , and more nauseas than he could've possibly ever gotten in his previous life. It feels so bad it's like dying,. He rips his fangs from Angel's neck and doubles over in agony. Tears spring to his eyes and he drops to his knees.  
  
  
The heart he thought he'd no longer had is breaking over and over.  
  
  
And over, just to be thorough.  
  
  
It feels like he's there on the floor, rocking and keening forever, when a gentle hand lays itself on his shoulder. He shudders and pulls away. Which doesn't deter Angel at all. He simply sinks to his knees and drapes his arm around Xander, leaning against him wearily.  
  
  
“Xander? 'S okay.” Angel slurs, and when Xander looks up—sees the blood running freely out of the jagged, gruesome-looking bite, and Angel gone paper-white with dark, unfocused eyes—and moans, edging away. Suddenly that grip tightens around him. Not enough to keep him, but enough to still him. He leans their heads together and sighs again. “No. Stop leavin' me.”  
  
  
“You stupid  _ass_ \--I could've killed you and you're worried I'm gonna  _leave_  you?!”  
  
  
“But you didn't. You stopped yourself in time, and I'm still alive. You're okay, I'm okay, so let's . . . okay, I think I'm  _not_  so okay. Room's spinnin' a  _lot_ \--”  
  
  
Takes a moment to note the faint, labored breathing, then he's up, on his feet. In his arms, Angel's as light as an exsanguinated feather. Stupid, stupid man. “The only person stupider than you is me.”  
  
  
Angel smiles absently. “True . . . s'okay, though. I still love you. Still . . . oh, crap. . . .” he sags, quite suddenly unconscious--but Xander's got him. Isn't going to let him go. He is, in fact, racing full tilt up the stairs and to the infirmary, cursing them both for ten different kinds of fool.  
  
  


*

  
  
His first set of memories upon waking up dead (and they've  _never_  felt like memories, not really, but instead like trailers for a movie seen long, long ago) in the middle of Heathrow Airport  
  
  
His second set of memories is of being released into Willow Rosenberg and William Lord's custody by a security detail, and of the three of them being escorted out of the Airport.  
  
  
“Willow” was pale and unhappy, and “William” was ashen-faced and tight-lipped.  
  
  
Xander can remember not understanding why Wiliam should be so grim, since  _he_  was the one being frog-marched away by two vaguely frightening people he didn't even know.  
  
  
And on the heels of that, came his first coherent thought:  _but I don't know who_ I _am, either._  
  
  
He'd spent the night in the London Chapterhouse, under lock and key. Watched by friends who really weren't—or at least didn't feel like it to Xander. They talked about him and around him, but rarely  _to_  him. Their tones were worried, hushed, miserable.  
  
  
They were strangers who looked at him like they couldn't understand why he was even there, and Xander had wanted to tell them:  _you have the wrong guy. I'm not the one you want._  
  
  
Little did he know how accurate that would be.  
  
  
One morning, a few days after Xander had been brought to the Chapterhouse—days in which he'd slept and slept, and slept some more—he awoke to a tall, slump-shouldered stranger at his bedside, red-eyed and rumpled-looking, holding Xander's hand. Though he'd reluctantly let go when Xander woke up and flinched away.  
  
  
He'd haltingly asked Xander how he was doing (fine, kind of hungry), if he remembered anything (no, not yet). If he was scared (sometimes, a little). And so on, until a tall, coltish woman had burst into the room, talking at a million miles an hour and hurling herself into his arms, weeping.  
  
  
Alarmed, Xander'd shoved her away  _hard_ , slipped past the stranger, and almost knocked down someone else entering the room. That near-collision was his first introduction to his erstwhile friend and employer, Rupert Giles.  
  
  
Even considering how little Xander knew of his condition then, the meeting didn't go well. Had ended with sedation and restraint.  
  
  
And though he was to see Dawn Summers frequently (her hugs and chatter unnerved him, but she was pleasant, in her own way, and impossible to dislike), he only saw the stranger five times after that.  
  
  
Rupert Giles and the others he avoided . . . unless he couldn't.  
  
  
But each time he'd seen the stranger, Angel, he'd seemed mostly the same but for some new lines, a bit of grey at the temples, fiddly human changes and hallmarks of time that Xander could see, but not really relate to. He was to learn from his only real friend, Drusilla, that Angel hadn't always been human. That he'd once been like Xander, a souled vampire.  
  
  
Then Angel had  _shanshu'd_  (actually, it was his demon, Angelus, who shanshu'd, while fighting with the Before People to defeat an evil that threatened humans and vampires alike) during some Apocalypse or other. One that'd happened while Xander was getting used to the weird, twitchy  _soul_  that kept itself to itself, except to give him horrible headaches whenever he thought too long on just how hungry he was, synthetic plasma aside.  
  
  
In the two years he'd spent at Montmorency, he'd never once asked Drusilla or any of the Before People, who'd Sired him. He'd thought, in passing, that it might be Spike . . . but never really cared enough to find out for certain. Never felt curious about the world, the house, or even the life he found himself stranded in. Never thought much beyond the next moment or the next unsatisfying meal. The next fix-it task that would keep him busy enough that he could forget just how hungry he always was, and thus spare himself a migraine or two.  
  
  
Every day was exactly the same. Loveless, but painless; empty, but quiet; hungry, but not starved.  
  
  
He wasn't happy, but he wasn't sad either. And even if he was, so what? What difference would any of that make when Xander planned to stay at Montmorency till it was dust, or he was?  
  
  


*

  
  
At sunset, in the dimness of the farthest, darkest corner of the infirmary, Angel stirs but doesn't open his eyes. “Ah, Christ alive, I'm fecking  _sore_.”  
  
  
Xander snorts, and gently bats Angel's scrabbling fingers away from his neck and pulls the light blanket up till it's under Angel's armpits, only to receive a glare for his troubles. “Well. You're lucky you're not dead. So hands off the bandage . . .  _Sire_.”  
  
  
Dark eyes in slightly lighter hollows widen, then squint. With most of the windows curtained, most of the lights off, and Xander sitting in the shadows, Angel can probably barely make him out. For some reason Xander finds that comforting.  
  
  
“You remember.”  
  
  
“Most of it.”  
  
  
Long, long pause. “What, exactly?”  
  
  
Xander squeezes his eye shut. Lets the memories come staggering back in dribs and drabs; disordered and disarrayed, brief, bright, and sharp. Hallmarks of his life with Angel, mostly. Crabbed entries in a long-locked diary:  
  
  
“August of 2012: we kissed for the first time—we were drunk and bleeding and celebrating. We'd just exterminated a small horde of zombies near my condo in Encinitas. You were still in gameface, and you said I tasted like blood and chocolate. Which really creeped me out, but out of nowhere I couldn't get enough of kissing you, so I let it slide.  
  
  
“September 3rd: we got into a screaming match at Home of Peace, and had sex for the first time between Cordelia's and Wesley's graves.” Better sex than he'd ever had with Spike, or even Anya—and Ahn was  _kinky_.  
  
  
Maybe Angel can read some of that on his face, because he starts to smile a little bemusedly. He's even  _blushing_. Xander clears his throat, even though he doesn't have any phlegm to do it with. “Um. April 10th 2013: I officially moved into your place near Irvine, though I'd been sleeping there every night for six months.  Well.  Not  _sleeping_. . . .”  
  
  
“No, not much,” Angel adds, sweeping a pretty lively gaze up and down Xander's baggily-dressed, paint-speckled form like a man who hasn't just had a sudden loss of blood and then a rapid blood transfusion.  
  
  
Hell, technically, he should still be unconscious.  
  
  
“June 6th, we'd been fighting for a week straight over . . . relationship issues . . . before I finally moved out. I wound up sleeping in Dawn and Andrew's den for a week. You slept with your ex, I slept with mine--”  
  
  
Angel rolls his eyes ceilingward. “Yeah, I still can't believe you and  _Spike_  had a--a _thing_ together,” he husks snottily. He looks pouty and weary, and Xander's heart does a weird swelling-fluttering thing it hasn't since he was alive. For the first time, he misses his heartbeat keenly.  
  
  
This body is strong, but too quiet. Too still, even when it's moving.  
  
  
“Well. It's not like he and I were in love, we just—tended to have sex if we were left alone with each other for longer than five minutes.” Xander snorts again. With his memories back, Spike's off-putting flirting now makes much more sense. Xander finds that everything does, with just a little context. “And hey, you don't hear me complaining about you and Nina. So let's just call it even-Steven, like we did back then.”  
  
  
“Gee. That puts my mind at ease.” Angel turns his face away, toward the row of empty, curtained off beds, and the admittance desk. But for him, Xander, and duty-nurse Colby, a vibrant WiR, there's no one else in the infirmary. And Nurse Colby is busy filing while rocking out to the Jonas Brothers on her iPod.  
  
  
 _Between that, being dead, and the lack of flying cars, the future kinda blows,_  Xander thinks, but without any vehemence. He's too busy fighting the distinct and powerful urge to kiss and suck that pout right off Angel's lips. Because there's no point in assuming too much despite . . . everything. A lot can change in two years. Xander's the non-living proof of that. However much he may want to pick up where they left off, Angel may want something completely different.  
  
  
“Uh . . . June 13th, we made up, to put it mildly. All over their den for which Andrew still hasn't forgiven us, last I heard.” Angel smirks off into the distance like the cat that ate the canary. But Andrew's hissy fit  _had_  been classic, as had getting fucked on every halfway flat surface in the immediate vicinity. But rather than skip merrily down a Memory Lane that may lead to heartache, Xander clears his throat again and goes on. “September 7th, you, uh . . . you. . . .”  
  
  
  
The tense set of Angel's shoulders relaxes, and the smirk becomes a crooked sort of half-smile. Though he may just be amused at Colby shaking her groove-thang. “I proposed to you, not sure what'd be crazier: me proposing, or you maybe saying yes.”  
  
  
  
“Hmm, I recall thinking  _I_  didn't know what would be crazier: me saying yes, or you maybe being serious about the whole thing.” Xander pauses and glances away when Angel looks at him again, seeming to see far more than Xander is comfortable with. “B-but we decided to give living together another try before we ran off to Vermont, or Canada. We did a lot better the second time around. Still fought, but never as bad as  _that_  time. Never went to bed angry.”  
  
  
Angel's lukewarm hand covers Xander's chilly one. Even in spring, he's got a corpse's hand, dry and cool. But Angel, just like Xander used to, doesn't seem to mind. Even though it couldn't possibly feels as good to him as it does to Xander—life pulsing away in his hand. At his side. . . .  
  
  
“Um. December 29th 2013.” This time,  _Angel_  looks away. Tries to let go of Xander's hand, but Xander won't let him.  “December 29th 2013 . . . I'm pretty sure that's the night I died. Is that right?”  
  
  
Angel nods once, stiffly. “Do you remember how?”  
  
  
“See, that's the day I'm still all fuzzy on, what with the dying, and then coming back to life in a crowded airport feeling all groggy and amnesiac-al.” Xander leans forward in his chair and stares at their linked hands. His is still covered in paint and some of Angel's blood. “Even now, all I remember clearly is stumbling around Heathrow airport, barefoot, for what felt like days. All I kept thinking was,  _who am I? It's so bright and I'm_ so hungry. But I couldn't seem to talk, to say anything to any of the people rushing around me. Their voices and heartbeats frightened me, and all I could smell was blood and life, till I was nearly drunk on it. I stood there, swaying and cringing for so long, security finally stopped by to have a word. I couldn't tell them who I was, so I sat in some tiny, stinky little holding room till Willow and Spike came to get me.”  
  
  
“We were in London for Rupert's wedding when I turned you.” Angel swallows as if the words are hard to say. They're certainly hard to hear, in a sense. The soul rises up within him, rails like a mental patient at the bars of its prison, rattling them to no avail. “You rose sooner than I thought you would. I went out to . . . to feed, and when I came back at sun-up, you were gone.”  
  
  
Xander tries to remember what rising must have felt like and can't. But he can easily recapture the feeling of being lost and alone and completely unable to understand why anything was happening or who he was. Remembers the feeling of achieving consciousness with a working knowledge of the world, but no true understanding of it. And that understanding had never truly deepened in the two years since.   
  
  
He shakes his head. Now's not the time to rediscover his broken-half. “I knew what I was, you know. And what  _they_  were. No one had to explain that she was a witch and that he was a vampire. Willow radiated magic so powerfully I could feel it in every part of me. And Spike . . . was like I was. Neither of us were breathing, neither of us had a heartbeat, and we were both too pale, even for Englishmen, which I quickly realized I wasn't. But I was a vampire, and the only other difference between he and I was his soul. He had one, and it smelled like lilies and vellum. Weird, hunh?”  
  
  
“No, not really,” Angel says softly. He sighs and places his other hand over Xander's, sandwiching it in gentle warmth. “Were you still scared when you recognized what Spike was?”  
  
  
“Until we got to the Chapterhouse and I was given a guestroom like something out of the Four Seasons, yeah. I thought Willow and Spike were there to . . . kill me, I guess.” Xander shrugs and lets the heat of Angel's hands seep inward. It feels better than anything he can remember at the moment. Better than the memory of confusion and fear. “I knew I didn't have a soul, and that soulless beings did awful things. That maybe just because I didn't remember my own name didn't mean that I hadn't done something . . . awful.  I thought they were there to put an end to me and I was glad that they were. Scared, but glad I wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else--”  
  
  
“Xander--”  
  
  
“Why'd you turn me, Angel?” It's hard to hold Angel's pained gaze, but he does. “I've been thinking and thinking about it, but I can't figure out why?”  
  
  
“Can't you?” Off Xander's puzzled look, Angel turns his face away again. “You said yes. When I asked you to marry me again. We were laying in bed, watching some damn infomercial about some damn space-age mattress, and you asked me if I thought we should get one, and I said if you hinted around at Willow, she'd probably get us one as a wedding gift. You were quiet for a minute, then you said you'd prefer a space-age pasta maker and a honeymoon in Tahiti, instead. Then you just kinda smiled at me, and I  _knew_  I finally had my answer. And I was so  _happy_. . . .”  
  
  
“Fuck. Oh,  _fuck_.” Xander leans back in his chair, sacrificing the warmth of Angel's hands to his desperate need to hide his face in his own. The implications of—everything--make his mind reel. Make it stagger around inside his skull like a drunk. “Is it totally inappropriate that I'm as flattered as I am horrified?”  
  
  
Angel laughs, but there's precious little humor in it. “Completely.”  
  
  
“That's what I thought.” He takes Angel's hand again, pulls it up to his face and presses it to his cheek. When Angel cups his face without hesitation, Xander feels like his heart's about to overflow with something that starts with a  _luh_  and ends . . . possibly never. It's amazing that he was able to exist without this feeling, even in such a benighted state. “Jesus, Angel, I'm so sorry.”  
  
  
“Don't, Xander. It's not your fault--”  
  
  
“Not about the perfect happiness—I mean, I'm not thrilled about being dead, but how could we have guessed you plus Xander Harris would ever equal a moment of perfect happiness?” He slips from chair to bed, leaning down till his forehead touches Angel's. “No, I'm sorry I forgot who I was and what we were to each other. Sorry that I left you for so long.”  
  
  
Angel shakes his head. “Again, not your fault. If I hadn't been so pig-headed about not giving you Sire's blood—“  
  
  
“You didn't want me to be evil. It's understandable. We've both seen real evil, and neither of us wants that for the other. We're totally on the same page here, babe.” Xander heaves a sigh of his own, cool enough to make Angel shiver. “I'm still sorry I forgot. That I didn't want to remember.”  
  
  
“Planning on doing it again, any time soon?”  
  
  
“No.” Xander says, and he'd like it to be a  _never_ , but he's lived long enough not to tempt the universe into making him break his promises. It'd already done quite enough of that. “Not for a few decades, at least.”  
  
  
Angel's laugh is sleepy, and this time, Xander doesn't fight the urge. He just presses his lips to Angel's, the lightest of pressure in case this is something Angel doesn't want, or doesn't want so soon. But Angel doesn't turn away or pull away. He leans forward and turns it into a  _real_  kiss.  
  
  
Xander's never in recent memory thought or said  _wow_ , but he's thinking it, now, and murmuring it into the best kiss he's ever had. Then he's just doing his best to keep up, as always, only this time . . . it feels anything but bad. He's so lost in it—for all Xander could care, good ol' Monty Hall might as well have ceased to exist--he doesn't even realize he's hard until the hand that'd been holding his is holding something else. He yelps his way out of the kiss, only to be shushed with another.  
  
  
“Quietly,” Angel murmurs, his fingers making short work of Xander's fly. There's no underwear to get in his way, just acres and acres of cool skin that Angel's  _not_  shy about exploring. “Tell me you still want this.”  
  
  
“I do, Angel, I do, but--” ignoring the simultaneous kicks of soul and demon, Xander removes Angel's hand and sits back, zipping his jeans. His regret is immediately quashed by the fact that under his tan, Angel looks grey and wan, his eyes starry and too wide.  
  
  
Most of his blood is singing through Xander's veins, imbuing them with something approximating life. The hard-on currently straining his fly is all thanks to Angel in more ways than just the strictly sexual.  
  
  
Sighing, he stands up and kisses Angel's forehead lingeringly. “I'd better let you rest, or Nurse Ratchett'll have my guts for garters. Go to sleep, and I'll be back later.”  
  
  
“No, wait, stay. . . .” those warm hands catch one of his own as he turns away, but he refuses to look back. Looking back would be defeat. Sweet, sweet defeat. “Stop  _leaving me_ , Xander. _Stay_.”  
  
  
“I'm  _not_  . . . babe, it's time for all good little humans to get some sleep. Especially the ones that nearly got drained of all their blood.” But Xander's looking back. Letting himself be pulled down to the bed. And if he's not mistaken, Angel's making the Puppy Eyes of Doom. “God, you're such a conniving bastard.”  
  
  
“Now, now, you're just mad because I won.” Angel closes his eyes for a moment. When they open, he smiles--though it turns into a yawn--and open his arms. “Get over here. I'll sleep if you sleep with me.”  
  
  
Xander only hesitates a moment before laying down next to Angel, who pulls him into his arms and onto his chest with a contented sigh. "There. Isn't that restful?"  
  
  
"Shut up."   
  
  
As always, Montmorency Hall is almost sepulchrally silent. This time, the only noise that disturbs it is Angel's soft, steady breathing and Nurse Colby attacking her take-away haggis to the beat of  _Mm-Bop!_  
  
  
Aaaaand it's time to tune back into his and Angel's private reality. With Angel's warmth seeping into his bones and that heart-beat in his ears, Xander could almost pretend . . . he kicks off his sneakers and closes his eyes. The darkness awaiting him is no longer abyssal, but velvety and soft. Darkness with  _promise_.  
  
  
“. . . think we'd be happier on a space-age mattress, though. I think this thing is Stone Age or older,” Angel says, shifting them a little. Xander tuts and lets himself be adjusted and arranged.  
  
  
“A Stone Age bed with actual stones for box-springs, no less. Tomorrow, we'll sleep in my bed, 'kay?”  
  
  
A brief silence ensues, but then Angel kisses the crown of his head. “Okay.”  
  
  
“And I want the mattress  _and_  Tahiti, cheap-wad . . . you know . . . eventually.”  
  
  
“Done. But you have to tell me one thing . . . what's  _my_  soul smell like?”  
  
  
Xander smiles to himself and squeezes Angel, a quick, excited hug. “G'night, Angel.”  
  
  
Another yawn, this one both big and affronted. “Aw, c'm _on_ , Xander. . . .”  
  
  



End file.
